And so this situation is starting to get ridiculous - and consumers are, as usual, caught in the middle of it all. Google has just blocked Windows Phone devices from accessing Google Maps on their phones. In addition, it also seems Windows Phone users are now restricted to the basic HTML version of the mobile GMail website. While understandable from a defensive perspective - Microsoft's extortion scheme targeting Android device makers and all that - it's still a massive dick move that only hurts consumers. Update: the media attention has worked - Google is backpedalling, and will remove the redirect. "We periodically test Google Maps compatibility with mobile browsers to make sure we deliver the best experience for those users. In our last test, IE mobile still did not offer a good maps experience with no ability to pan or zoom and perform basic map functionality. As a result, we chose to continue to redirect IE mobile users to Google.com where they could at least make local searches. The Firefox mobile browser did offer a somewhat better user experience and that’s why there is no redirect for those users. Recent improvements to IE mobile and Google Maps now deliver a better experience and we are currently working to remove the redirect. We will continue to test Google Maps compatibility with other mobile browsers to ensure the best possible experience for users."

Nice way to spin it. If that were the case, if products truly won market share based on their actual merits alone, then Windows itself would not have gained its monopoly in the way it did. And Microsoft would have never needed to use illegal tactics with its monopoly power to crush all competition before it even has time to exist as a threat on the market through strong-arming OEMs (BeOS?). Opera never went anywhere--if Microsoft didn't have the entire world by the balls with their Windows/Office/IE tri-monopoly, people would have been able to switch to it with no problem.

Hell, if a product had to be technically superior to win, Windows' own predecessor--MS-DOS--would not even have been the dominant operating system. Instead, that entire class of operating systems would be seen as the complete piece of shit that it is. Of course, Microsoft's lucky timing and deal with IBM, combined with hardware limitations of the original IBM PC, sealed history--and Microsoft's cheap tactics solidified them as a monopoly in many areas for decades to come.

It's about damn time for their eventual collapse, or at least significant reduction in power. It's what the world needed at least a decade ago.